"Playing Historical Games with Flames of War" Topic

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One of the great aspects of Flames of War is how the game can be used for different types of play that are each enjoyable and present different challenges for the players. FoW tournaments are a huge success at conventions and local gaming stores. There is also one on one play where two opponents play a game at their home or at their gaming store. And finally, there is using the game to re-create a historical battle, which this article will highlight.

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Interesting definition of the word "historical".

I don't see anything controversial about his use of the word historical. Good article by Mitch, thanks Steve.

Well historical would imply that which actually happened so those units engaged would be on the table and not units picked from a list. Themed may be a closer word choice here but if everyone is having fun…..

David

Stop peddling that heresy here :) we all know its WHWW2K.
Cheers enjoy it, some of my mates do :+)

We use FOW for historical WW2 all the time. We use and rules with a few in-house tweaks, the stats and totally ignore the lists.

If it's not listed in the historical OOB then it's not on the table.

Works fine for us!

Always design, write up and play scenarios based on historical actions. Haven't used a FOW "list" head to head gaming for almost 8 years. Points are just a basic yardstick for figuring out rough weight for each side… but uneven fights abound. Typically use 2-3k for points on average for 4-6 players scenario.

M aka WR

Our group does a bit of both. We play "points based" games and in tournaments on occasion IAW "the offical rules and lists." But then we also frequently set up historcial scenarios and actual OOB based camapigns and often employ house rules in those where needed.

I prefer the historical focused gaming effort with FoW, but the points/tournament/list approach did help build our local player base.

Cheers, VB

Don't like the rules, but the chaps at the club have done plenty of historical scenarios,

Tally Ho!

We do both. I prefer the historical games and find that with our group we seem to have more fun with those.

I'm planning to run a Counterattack at Mokvre multiplayer scenario in new year.

Some of the rules don't support really historical gaming so require a bit of houseruling unlike say Battlegroup Kursk or Force on Force.

1. All artillery in FOW is on table which means that they're also all defacto ATGs. They removed Across The Volga rules from 3rd edition.

I am using off table for my artillery in the scenario. In other scenarios I would allow counterbattery on a 5+)

2. Air support is too effective (especially for more open Eastern Front) and in many ways quite unbalancing.

I'm not allowing it in this scenario. In other scenarios I would limit it and quite possibly modify ranging in rules to make it harder (maybe use old V2 rules).

3. Dense terrain favours attacker too much especially if they're packing a lot of tanks – remember there's no opportunity fire in FOW.

It means units can jump from terrain piece to terrain piece (especially LOS blocking buildings).

It means modifing some of the basic terrain rules. E.g. cross country becomes Slow Going as opposed to normal to encourage usage of roads.

It also means setting up terrain is quite a balancing act and a lot of consideration has to be given to coverage including line of sight.

4. There is no opportunity/overwatch fire. As stated above that impacts on terrain density and lay out.

The Ambush rules aren't really opportunity/overwatch fire.

This can be problematic when historical circumstances dictate terrain or one side is lacking in mobile redeployable assets and are stuck to stationary assets that can be avoided by terrain hopping.

Not much I can do here. Changing the core rules could be too unbalancing. It works in other rule sets because there's opportunity cost (e.g. using an Order in Battlegroup to put units on overwatch) or it requires a skill test ala Force on Force.

5. Tanks can be unbalancing in FOW. The system gives a lot of advantages to tanks e.g. a tank hull MG has same ROF as a rifle squad with an MG42. There are no restrictions on MG firepower and movement. A tank can fire main gun and MGs (albeit at reduced ROF) at same time.

As mentioned tanks aren't hampered by lack of roads and rules need to be modded to limit their mobility to more "realistic" levels.

It makes attacking with infantry a difficult proposition even if they have their own tanks.

Again not sure how to limit this. Scenario I'm planning is tank heavy so not much of a problem here.

In most games I've played , assaulting infantry is effectively a mopping up tool unless it's massive Russian company sized blobs. A unit of Panzergrenadiers or British Rifles makes for very poor offensive capability

6. Limits of IGO-UGO system that lacks any "interruption" mechanism.

Such is life here.

I reluctantly moved over to FOW for historical games just so I knew some rules that "the rest of the world" is playing. Like everyone above, I stick to the actual circumstances for each battle & have a list of House rules to clean up the parts I don't like. In the end, I think they work great as a core rule set for such games and am happy I made the transition.

@Deadone. Roads yes yes yes, you have it. They should mean something for tracked. I'd go with the bonus move instead of the slow going for cross country.

I have tried a few other things. Use whatever house rules make the game play out correctly and be sure everyone is aware of them before they start.

The biggest changes I have done that seem to affect "balance" is the ambush stuff for terrain…. there is a mechanism in FoW that really covers early stages of overwatch…. but the scenery jumpers are a problem.

I like to have historic games of FoW with a ref… meaning you can place hidden assets that need ot be found by recon or else they can ambush just like in real life.

I also changed the sniper ranges/location thing too.

This sounds like how we play FoW with my group.

2. Air support is too effective (especially for more open Eastern Front) and in many ways quite unbalancing.

I'm not allowing it in this scenario. In other scenarios I would limit it and quite possibly modify ranging in rules to make it harder (maybe use old V2 rules).

For Vietnam, I really want to go all the way back to V1 rules, where there was a chance of friendly fire from your air support.

I read, think it was Hamburger Hill, where some idiot driving the Aerial Rocket Arty volleyed his entire load instead of two rockets at a time as requested/ordered. Naturally, the rockets hit a US formation.

I use a friendly fire rule from Squad Leader that has always worked well for me. It's more realistic & avoids that invisible line that gets gamed by both sides looking to add/remove air support.